Amanda Holden has claimed she offered to meet Phillip Schofield to discuss a reported rift between the pair but that the ITV presenter ignored her.
Speaking on her Heart Breakfast radio show, Holden addressed comments by an unnamed former daytime TV executive who said Schofield was allegedly responsible for her “losing out” on a co-presenting job on This Morning.
A source told the Sun on Sunday that Holden had spoken to ITV after she believed Schofield had allegedly said she was “difficult to manage”.
Addressing her co-host Jamie Theakston on Monday, she said: “I’ve moved on from it, Jamie, you need to move on from it.”
He replied: “You might have moved on but I just wanted to know, is there any more to the story?”
She said: “I did offer to meet him for a coffee months ago, he didn’t reply to my text. What can I say?”
Theakston said: “The olive branch had been extended,” to which she replied: “Oh yes.”
He then compared the rift to Taylor Swift and Katy Perry’s famous feud, suggesting the pair could embrace dressed as giant burgers and chips like the two singers.
Holden rubbished the idea, replying: “I doubt it, I’m a vegetarian, Jamie.”
It comes after 57-year-old Schofield, who has been a fixture on This Morning since 2002, responded to the claims on Twitter.
He said: “The end of another really sad weekend. When you try for 35 years to be the easiest, most fun person to work with and you read such hurtful and wildly untrue stories from nameless ‘sources’.
The end of another really sad weekend. When you try for 35 years to be the easiest, most fun person to work with and you read such hurtful and wildly untrue stories from nameless ‘sources’. Obviously I’ll take it on the chin.. I just hope you know me better.
— Phillip Schofield (@Schofe) June 23, 2019
“Obviously I’ll take it on the chin. I just hope you know me better.”
ITV said the presenter line-ups on This Morning “change regularly and final decisions on these line-ups are made by producers and not the presenters”.
The broadcaster added: “Phillip Schofield is a much-loved broadcaster and part of the ITV family. He is a consummate professional and held in high regard at ITV.”